Blacklock's Reporter

ArriveCan emails were destroyed by the Canada Border Services Agency only days after they were sought under the Access To Information Act, records show. The Act forbids deliberate destruction of records under a maximum penalty of two years in jail: "Please do a search." READ MORE

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault’s department is targeting household cats as an ecological peril. The department in a report complained tens of thousands of pet cats were roaming Canadian cities hunting birds: "Did you know there could be up to 48,000 cats roaming in Gatineau, Que.?" READ MORE

A federal agency proposes to write its own news stories for subsidized publishers at an undisclosed cost to taxpayers. Stories would be reviewed and fact-checked by federal employees before they’re published on “trusted media platforms.” READ MORE

A federal Court Challenges Program has cost $24.9 million since cabinet revived subsidies for Charter challenges in 2017, says a Department of Canadian Heritage report. The department would not say which lawsuits were subsidized or why: "No one is able to tell me who got the money." READ MORE

Most Black Canadians were born abroad with a majority arriving here after 1971, new Statistics Canada data show. The figures contradict federal claims a legacy of Canadian “slavery and exploitation” is to blame for income disparities: "Slavery and exploitation were part of Canadian society for over 200 years." READ MORE

Poet W.N. Branson writes: "In the storm, the grandmother worried about her people. The road crew worried about the storm. The explorers worried about the beer..." READ MORE

In 1997, returning home one evening from a cruise on the St. Lawrence River, criminologist Patrice Corriveau witnessed an assault. Five men were tormenting a sixth. “A gang of arrogant roughnecks, bursting with testosterone, decided to taunt him; they deem his attire too effeminate and conclude he must be a ‘faggot,’ a ‘queer,’” writes Corriveau. “With unbelievable violence, these brave souls shove the young man around as a crowd watches without reacting or intervening in any way.” Upset by what he’d seen, Professor Corriveau of the University of Ottawa devoted his doctoral studies to the persecution of gays in French culture, typically men “used as scapegoats by a society disturbed by sexuality,” he writes. The result, La Répression des Homosexuels au Québec et en France, is adapted to English by UBC Press. READ MORE